This thread is a chance for all Houston Area Dopers and such to check in.
I work in the Med Center and live about 7 miles southwest of there. Took me 2.5 hours to get home. I live two streets north of Brays Bayou. I didn’t have water in my house, but I had to park three blocks away and wade through knee-deep water to get home. My street still looks like a river, although now we are starting to see the center of the road break through the water.
We have not got the second wave of storms yet. Hopefully we will ride them out OK as well.
We got hit pretty bad just northwest of Houston too. Luckily it hasn’t started flooding. Yet. I’m glad my house is up on a little hill. Even if it floods I won’t get water in the house but there is only one road in and out. If it floods, which it has a tendency to do, I’ll be stuck. Either at home or at work. Hmm. Maybe I should take some extra clothes to work tomorrow just in case.
My usually less than 10 minute ride home took an hour and 40 minutes, and many streets I don’t normally travel. I was exhausted when I finally got here.
We stood in the conference room watching as the intersection of 59 and Weslayan gobbled up cars. We watched the little ones approach, and more than once a cry went up in unison, “No! Go back! Don’t try it!”
Our fave was the guy in the compact with the downward sloping hood who torpedoed in. Good sport - he hung around pushing other cars after he swam away from his own drowned steed.
It was a bit eerie to think that, as we watched a couple of years old Mercedes perch on the edge of the service station oasis and contemplate fording the feeder river and then make the fatal decision to try, we’d just watched ~$30,000 being removed from the economy.
I hope y’all are OK as well! Dallas received the end of your storm yesterday, it rained like hell all day. We need the rain, but damn: it’s November, and we have tornado watches?
Pass the word - never drive through high water. Unless you have a hammer in your car and are up for the adventure of breaking out your windows. If the car is completely submerged, hold your breath until the pressure relaxes, and then open the door.
I sure hope y’all have good carpet cleaners in the area. Good luck!
Man, I got punked yesterday. UH canceled classes at 3:30 and didn’t tell me (I was sitting in the University Center waiting for my 4:00 class). I go into class, and I get told that classes are canceled and that the building’s basement is flooding. Yay.
From UH to my apartment near Bellaire is about a 20 minute drive at via the South Loop at 5:30. At 4:00, I should have gotten there in 15 minutes. Took me two hours to get home. On the plus side, my car is still alive and kicking. On the bad side, I so many mini-geysers shooting through the holes in the manhole covers, I was worried one was going to torpedo the underside of my car in a sudden burst of forceful water pressure.
Braes Bayou at MacGregor and Scott was a raging river just barely contained when I attempted to get to 288 (didn’t know at the time it was also a river). Got to take Scott Street all the way down to the Loop. The Loop was a hoot. I spent an hour either stuck behind a semi or behind this beaten-up old truck with a Confederate flag bumper sticker that said “I ride with Forrest.”
My normally speedy South Loop East was a parking lot. I saw a little Civic try to speed through the feeder road near the Braeswood exit. It stalled out when the water level (at the top of his bumper) suddenly jumped to the top of his hood. Cars were pulled over on the side of the freeway waiting for the Braeswood Exit lake to subside. Saw a charter school stalled out in the exit. Also saw about six other cars right there stalled out with an additional six or so parked on halfway up the freeway embankment and on some park land. After the excitement of the Loop, I was greeted to a flooded Chimney Rock and heavily congested Bellaire Blvd. On the plus side, I got to see parts of the area I’ve never traveled through before.
Siegfried, sounds like you live in my neighborhood.
I sat on North Macgregor north of Holcombe for nearly 30 minutes, watching the water in Brays Bayou pounding against the bridge. Since I drive a little car, I was not happy.
I live a street north of North Braeswood. My wife took 1.5 hours to get home from U of H at 5 PM, going down Evergreen to Rice and Beechnut down. She couldn’t get closer than 4 streets to our house. By 7:30, I got there and the water hadn’t receded at all. We went north on Hillcroft and ate some sev puri and saag paneer (Bombay Sweets is the shizzle), and tried again at 8:30. Took us till 9:30 to get back to Beechnut from 59 and Hillcroft, and we were now able to get 2 streets away without getting wet, although our street was still a total river.
There was a mail truck at our corner leading to Braeswood that had about 2 feet sticking out of the water when my wife got home. There was also a sunken old-school Corolla and a medium-school Cadillac. Three houses on our block had the ominous rolled up carpet and carpet foam on the curb this afternoon. A little too close for comfort although we were high and dry through Allison as well…
edwino, maybe not the same neighborhood, but we’re definitely close to each other. Like, maybe five minutes travel from each other. I’m in the no-real-name area tucked between Bellaire and the Galleria. My roommate calls the area the Belleria.
My roommate and I used to live in apartment complex off of Memorial and Shepherd. I know the news reports said the Memorial underpass at Shepherd was flooded; I can only imagine what Buffalo Bayou was like at the peak of all this. Plus, the little neighborhood behind that complex has no storm sewers – just ditches. I bet people back there got flooded.
I work downtown and live at Beechnut/Bissonett. While my subdivision didn’t flood, Braes (obviously) did, and So does the whole 59 to Braes area around there. After taking the Park And Ride back to the 610/S. Post Oak/Braes lot, a 2 hour trip, I got to hang around till 10:30 to wait for the water to recede enough that I could drive home. Let me just add Houston flooding to my list of reason to have a lifted 4x4. I did find I can successfullt navigate 4 feet of water with no problems. Well, other than a wet seat from dropping the tailgate and letting the vehicle fill with water so I wouldn’t float. But man, was that ever a long damn day. Oh, and I came home last night to no power till about 10 PM. Stupid Reliant.
I don’t leave work until 6:30PM, so I was able to get home with no trouble. I work near the intersection of Beltway 8 and the SW Freeway, so a lot of my co-workers who live in the surrounding area couldn’t get home for awhile. We’re just a few blocks away from the apartments that had the roof torn off. Our building wasn’t damaged but we could look out the windows and watch debris fall from the sky into our parking lot.
Northeast Houston. The power went out a couple times, but never long. Rained like hell. Looked like fun though. I was going to do what I did last time it rained like this (see the 'Straight Dope Lost and Found Desk thread where I talked about riding half-naked down the San Jacinto with a bunch of friends), but the rain never let up enough and everyone just wanted to go home, so I went home and slept all afternoon.
Yesterday, there were areas on the greenbelt (sidewalk that goes through a wooded area, prettymuch) that water was up to my knee on.
The power went out all over town and the neighboring towns as well at about 1:30. Other than all the wind, it was a typical sunny, 80-degree November day here. Oh yeah, I’m okay.